"In 1853 a man named George Marshall opened a shop that manufactured and repaired reapers. By 1864 he acquired two (2) partners and a stock company was formed and incorporated. This later became the Illinois Iron & Bolt Company."

II&B was taken over by Julius Angelo Carpenter in 1868. Carpenter diversified their product line from reapers and mowers to "thimble skeins for wagons, sad irons, copying presses, seat springs, blacksmith tools, pumps and other articles with a national market". Carpenter died in 1880, but the company lived on. George P. Lord succeeded Carpenter (perhaps not directly). He also married Carpenter's widow. Lord earned notoriety for slashing wages and then fighting all efforts to organize a union and negotiate for fair wages.

According to an article in Suburban Chicago News, "By the late 1800s, when all of Carpentersville and the two Dundees had only 5,000 people, Illinois Iron & Bolt employed 2,000. It made farm machinery, flat irons, thimble skeins, presses buggy-seat springs, vises, jacks, and other tools. The Vulcan Brand was introduced around 1920.

"The dawning age of cars and tractors made many of its horse-age products obsolete. II&B's business declined, and by 1977 it had gone out of business."